As high grade woods used in making conventional wooden bats become more scarce, the raw material cost for such bats accordingly increases. When lower grade woods are used to make bats, the chances of bat breakage are increased, increasing user costs. In addition, lower grade woods generally are not as resilient as higher grade woods. Therefore, a ball will travel farther in the air when hit with a conventional bat made from higher grades of wood. As such, there is a need to find a compromise between the use of inexpensive wood raw materials, i.e., low grade woods, while maintaining the high resiliency characteristics of high grade woods used in making conventional bats.
Another problem is the potential for injury caused by such bat breakages. While baseball is a relatively injury-free sport due to its non-contact nature versus other major sports in this country, i.e., football and basketball, there is still a risk of injury to both fans and players from bat breakage which can occur when a bat contacts a ball. When such breakage occurs, the handle of the bat is left in the player's grip while the remaining portion of the bat with sharp portions of exposed wood is sent dangerously whirling through the air. This broken portion of the bat sent through the air can cause serious injuries to both fans and players. In fact, there have been occasions where such broken portion of the bat has impaled a batter awaiting his turn at the plate in the on-deck circle which is in relatively close proximity to the batter's box. This is of particular concern in games played at levels below the major league level, e.g., little league, high school, college and minor league levels, where oftentimes fans can also be in relatively close proximity to the batter with no protection from such injury due to bat breakage.
Baseball is a relatively low scoring and slow paced game when compared to football and basketball. However, it is generally agreed that the most exciting offensive occurrence in a baseball game is when a batter strikes a pitched ball with such force and at the right point on the bat that it is sent through the air into the stands or out of the park for a home run. Thus, batters have great incentive to find ways to increase their likelihood of hitting home runs. While this act requires a great deal of skill on the player's part, as mentioned earlier, the fight bat can also improve the player's chances of hitting a home run. In an effort to improve the performance of bats made from even high grades of wood in terms of the distance a ball travels through the air, players oftentimes have their bats "corked". Corking of a bat involves drilling out a portion of the barrel section of the bat and inserting a cork piece into the hollowed-out portion of the barrel of the bat. Subsequently, a wood plug is used to cover the hollowed-out portion with the plug being matched to the grain at the end of the barrel so that any evidence of tampering with the integrity of the bat is minimized. Although theories as to why corking improves ball travel when hit by a corked bat vary, it is generally agreed that a corked bat is lighter than a normal bat, thus improving the bat speed of a player, which generally will translate into increased ball travel upon contact with the bat. Such corking is prohibited in major league baseball. Hence, there is a need to provide more easily observable evidence of corking in baseball bats.
In addition, it is known that in a normal ball bat, the point of greatest strength, and thus maximum resiliency for increased ball travel, is at the edge grain of the bat. Thus, bat manufacturers generally imprint their manufacturing label so that the center thereof is substantially on the flat grain of the bat so that batters are alerted to position the label to align the edge grain of the bat with the point of contact of the ball on the bat. By contacting the ball at the edge grain of the bat, the frequency of bat breakage is also reduced.